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4500 acres is the small parcel. That is the equivalent of 31 percent of the land mass of Manhattan, New York County, New York.
Which is great if they have a quality cap, but the plastic caps people use for some reason will either be lost or illegible long before the rebar is gone.
The only times I have pulled one is to replace it with a more substantial monument, and that is of course documented in a recorded survey.
I think the idea that pulling them reduces confusion has some merit, but I have never been confident enough of a “monuments” history to know that no one will mind. Instead, to reduce confusion I make my corner more prominent, peramntly self identifying, and more substantial.
- Posted by: @holy-cow
4500 acres is the small parcel. That is the equivalent of 31 percent of the land mass of Manhattan, New York County, New York.
How many acres do you need to support a cow? ie/ how big a herd will 4500 acres support?
- Posted by: @thebionicman
@dmyhill except for the 100 or so years between GLO and recording..
Any parcel that has not been surveyed during the recording era is unlikely to have any rebar traverse points anywhere near it. So that’s a wash.
@norman-oklahoma
Rating land use for livestock is based on an animal unit, standardized at 1000 pounds of live weight. Mature cows tend to run between 900 and 1400 pounds. In our area the standard is four acres per animal unit. In the arid regions of the West that number can grow to 100 acres per animal unit as much of the area does not grow much in the way of usable feed.
Driving across a portion of Southeastern Colorado, I commented that we were in an area where if you were to take a cow out there and turn her loose to forage on her own, someone might call the ASPCA on you for cruelty to animals. In the arid regions, water sources become the limiter. A cow will learn how far she can go from the water source to munch on edibles before she needs to head back.
@norman-oklahoma
Depends: Ranchers real product is their grass, the cattle are the processing units for the grass lands. It varies greatly, I know a small 20,000 Ac. ranch that ships out more cattle than a 100,000 Ac ranch. Some lands will support a cow every 30-40 acres and others will support one every 5 acres (that’s the really prime grass). Plus you need lots of water, no water in the area, no cows to wonder over and eat.
I watched a Netflix movie about an early okie, Montford Johnson, at one time the family had 1.3 million acres in Oklahoma. The drama maybe got a lil over the top, but the history is interesting to me.
As far as the 4500 acre piece, they lease out the place I think and I doubt it’s real productive cause it’s too timbered. At least 1/2 is yellow and lodgepole pine woods, needles aren’t the greatest food source. But they have good water and decent grass along the valley floor.
- Posted by: @williwaw
@mark-indzeris You just need a few feet of chain with links large enough to slip over the rebar, hook the other end over the foot of the jack and start cranking. They pull with the same force they lift. I have a 12?? tow chain I use. Works slick.
Can confirm. Works even when you have to pull a 1″x1″x48″ Standard Iron Bar (SIB) in our jurisdiction. We use some “gentle” sledge persuasion before we bring over the jack. We just tie a knot on either end to secure the chain.
https://www.tekmet.ca/surveyor.php
(3rd item down, though the pic is kinda cruddy)
We had to pull a few when the drafter put the wrong calc file for the field crew. A farm jack-all, 10′ of chain binder, and a lot of cursing worked wonders. A box of beer from the drafter for the crew saved the drafter from much-deserved ire.
- Posted by: @holy-cow
@norman-oklahoma
Rating land use for livestock is based on an animal unit, standardized at 1000 pounds of live weight. Mature cows tend to run between 900 and 1400 pounds. In our area the standard is four acres per animal unit. In the arid regions of the West that number can grow to 100 acres per animal unit as much of the area does not grow much in the way of usable feed.
So something on the order of 1000 beasties on 4500 acres. Which, I think, take a couple of years to grow to a marketable size? And sell for $2500?-ish. Yielding a gross return of about $250-$300 per year per acre? If the profit margin is 10%, $25/acre net. Meaning an income of a little over $100k per year for a rancher with 4500 acres. That is, 4500 acres is a small family operation.
These are all costs and projections from a suburban lifer with some google-fu skills but little personal experience in the matter.
- Posted by: @norman-oklahomaPosted by: @holy-cow
@norman-oklahoma
Rating land use for livestock is based on an animal unit, standardized at 1000 pounds of live weight. Mature cows tend to run between 900 and 1400 pounds. In our area the standard is four acres per animal unit. In the arid regions of the West that number can grow to 100 acres per animal unit as much of the area does not grow much in the way of usable feed.
So something on the order of 1000 beasties on 4500 acres. Which, I think, take a couple of years to grow to a marketable size? And sell for $2500?-ish. Yielding a gross return of about $250-$300 per year per acre? If the profit margin is 10%, $25/acre net. Meaning an income of a little over $100k per year for a rancher with 4500 acres. That is, 4500 acres is a small family operation.
These are all costs and projections from a suburban lifer with some google-fu skills but little personal experience in the matter.
Side note from my own personal experience–family farms are only cash-rich/financially viable when:
1. they sell the whole operation (ie. no longer farmers)
2. expand to the size they need to incorporate (ie. no longer the “family farm”)
3. leverage their holdings to secure loans from the bank that take over 50 years to pay so that inflation helps them pay things off in the future (ie. so 10 to 20 years after the original farmer dies)
Or, in short, they usually are not cash-rich. The majority of farmers, in my area, also hold second jobs as the farm itself would just barely support a small family. Case in point–me.
I help run our family farm. My Dad went in full bore in the early 80’s cash cropping 13 other farms and expanded our original 50 acre farm to the ~200 acres we have now. We retired the old converted dairy barns and built 2 X 1000 head hog finisher barns around 2000 when the market crashed in 1998 and it was no longer financially viable to remain independent. We are now part of a co-op that delivers around ~100,000 market hogs a year to a local slaughterhouse. My surveying and engineering jobs are my secondary; my brother (my “coworker”) drives a truck for a living. My Dad paid off all of his loans a couple years ago (so a ~40 year payback). This was before land prices exploded from $5000/workable acre to the current $25000/workable acre in our area. All of our equipment is around 35 years or older and fixed by us. My dad’s truck was about the cheapest 2 wheel drive F-150 he could get back 12 years ago. We are extremely mindful of costing and doing everything within our power to keep things done by the family as exterior costs are huge to a small operation like us.
Current family farms will never be paid off in our area until the children do so or the farm is sold.
@norman-oklahoma
Need to lower the number drastically for the 4500 acre place. I doubt 150 head graze on it.
- Posted by: @mightymoe
@norman-oklahoma
Need to lower the number drastically for the 4500 acre place. I doubt 150 head graze on it.
Your animal/acre estimate is dramatically different from HC’s unless I’ve misunderstood. Which is probable. But it would seem that a Wyoming rancher might need 4500 x 7 ?? 30,000 acres (about 7 miles square) to make of go of it?
You have described things quite well. Farmers/ranchers build up long term assets over time but those assets are not particularly liquid (available quickly). Owning a million dollars worth of real estate and having $4.89 in your checking account go hand in hand.
@norman-oklahoma
In an arid area yes, it would probably take 30k to make a go of it, but not in the thick grass land areas.
@norman-oklahoma
In my area it is roughly 4 acres per animal unit. Moe’s guess of 30 acres per animal unit is very realistic for his vicinity. We have a normal annual rainfall of 40 inches. His area would have far less, and much of that would be in the form of snow and ice which is not immediately available to the animal.
My wife’s family ranched in South Central Colorado. Much of that land does not grow anything a cow would want to eat, but shows up in the total land area available. Another factor is that much ranch land is grazed during different seasons only. Spring pasture vs Fall pasture for example. That can double the necessary acres.
@norman-oklahoma my reply was related to the ‘monuments not of record’ comment. There are a lot of valid surveys where the map was tossed with Geanpa’s papers. Still more the maps stayed with the County Surveyor when he left office. The idea that a monument must show on a recorded map to be of value is wrong, period.
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